Australian Birds

We started the day at Lake Dyer after a hot tip on a spot to see Plum-headed Finch.  This proved extremely useful as not only did we see quite a few Plum-heads, we also managed to flush several Red-backed Button-Quail in the process.  From here we headed to Lake Galletly at the Gatton campus of UQ to chase up some Blue-billed Ducks reported recently.  We got four of these, but also managed to get prolonged views of a Lewin's Rail picking its way along the edge of the lake, and a Little Grassbird moving around the edges.  Lake Clarendon was a bit disappointing, however Jahnke's Lagoon, our main goal for the day, produced and we (eventually) found the Pectoral Sandpiper reported from the previous week.  Despite being on the close shore of the lake, it was still quite a distance from the road and difficult to get good views of.  Eventually we got a good enough view of the bill to be absolutely sure.  Seven Mile Lagoon held a pair of Black-necked Storks - my first for the Lockyer, and a small roadside wetland just around the corner had a small number of Hoary-headed Grebe, another great bird for the area and my first ever in Queensland.  Our final stops for the valley were Lake Atkinson and the turf farms beyond the lake.  On the way to the lake we had crippling views of Ground Cuckoo-Shrike, a fantastic bird and very dificult to get near usually.  With a lot of holiday activity the lake was pretty empty, and the turf farm was being mowed so not a lot to see.  We did manage to find an area of eucalypts flowering opposite the turf farm that had many Fuscous Honeyeaters and some Little Lorikeets, and on the way out found a flock of Grey-crowned Babblers.

We returned to Brisbane via a scenic route - namely via Mt Glorious and Lake Samsonvale.  The Mt Glorious part of our trip was, by necessity, brief.  We did manage to get a quick half-hour walk in through the rainforest, and while not picking up much in the way of rare birds, we did manage a few nice rainforest specialists.  Our best birds for the walk were Pale Yellow Robin, Green Catbird, and Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, all rainforest specialists and all somewhat diffcult to find in Brisbane.

After Mt Glorious we had a quick drop in to Lake Samsonvale to look for King Quail.  In this we were successful, quickly flushing 3 birds including 2 males from the long grass by the lake.  We also managed to nearly step on a massive Red-bellied Black Snake, which got all our hearts racing (the snake included - it took off at a million miles an hour).  Apart from this success things were pretty quiet at the lake, though we did pick up quite a lot of bush birds around the periphery of the woodland block at the cemetary, and heard a calling Little Bronze-Cuckoo.

We had two species driving through Brisbane suburbs that we didn't record on the rest of the trip.  With those, the total of the day was brought to 149, including heard records.  Not a bad effort for one day's birding.